


Cry For Help

by EffingEden



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-27
Updated: 2010-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah loses another baby, but this one she can't win back</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry For Help

**Author's Note:**

> Comment_fic prompt, 'Labyrinth; Sarah/Jareth; Forgotten temptation'

The room was her prison.

Soft, pastel pink walls; rounded furniture; miniature stuffed animals with exaggerated features and furred with washable flannel. And there, at the centre, was the nightmarish monolith she couldn’t take her eyes from.

An empty crib.

It commanded her attention, chained her. Blamed her.

She could still hear the echoes of the last argument she’d had with Sean. The slam of the door. The phone ringing for hours. And always, always the hollowness that belonged to the sound-that-would-never-be.

She stayed in that room for a week. Only her most basic urges gave her any freedom. It stayed with her, always. How could she leave?

When exhaustion overcame her, she slept, curled against the wall. When her eyes opened, still heavy and dazed with weariness, the first thing she saw was the crib, looming and terrible in its emptiness. How could she continue?

She knew the world turned. Life kept going – but she couldn’t.

It had been a recurring nightmare of hers, since she had been a teenager. An empty crib. And now it had come true.

 _Again_.

That niggled a memory. Something had happened, with Toby. His crib had been empty… not for this long, but he had been returned to her. Could she win Jessie back?

It was difficult moving, like her limbs were weighed down. Her mind moved just as sluggishly. A giant with red hair and a pug face… a dwarf with jewels… a foxy swordsman… a maze… a castle… and a stench that made her stomach clench.

It had something to do with a play she had preformed in high school.

She stumbled into her and Sean’s bedroom. The bedclothes were still messed up from the day they had rushed to the hospital. When she had lost…

The closet. She had to open the closet. There was something – a box. A chest. She hadn’t opened it in years. It had the scrapbook of her mother’s newspaper clippings in it, and the last gifts she had been given from her.

She opened the closet door and started to drag the clothes off their hangers. Suits and dresses, silk shirts and kimonos, she tore them out. At the back, there was Sean’s golf clubs, his battered trombone, their skis, several hat boxes – there. There it was. Dusty and scuffed. She sat down and lifted the lid.

The scrapbook was on top. She lifted a few pages and stared at the grainy black-and-white shots of her mother’s laughing face. She lifted it out and put it in front of her. Underneath, there was a red leather-bound book, with gold embossed ‘The Labyrinth’ on the front.

“Through dangers untold,” she whispered. Her fingers brushed the edges of the book, but she didn’t open it. Instead, she lifted it out too. There was a cheap, tacky tiara, and a musical box. A dark haired girl in a white dress. As she lifted it, a few notes drifted from it.

The last thing in the box was beautiful. She didn’t remember it at all. A crystal ball.

She lifted it to eye height and watched how it made the harsh light glimmer elegantly.

There was an odd twist of movement inside it – a reflection. She looked over her shoulder, half expecting… but there was no one.

 _Forget about the baby._

She licked her lip and looked into the ball. “I need you,” she said, without knowing why, only that it felt right.

Her grip on the orb slipped, and it dropped, shattering when it hit the corner of the chest.

She stared at the fragments for a long, aching moment. Of course it would smash. What had she expected? Laughter swelled in her chest. She could keep it in. It clawed out of her throat and danced in the air manically as the light shone off the crystal shards.

Soon, it caught and hitched, turning wetter, deeper, flowing into harsh sobs. She was crying, for the first time since…

“I need you,” she ground out through the sobs. “Do you hear me? I need you!” she screamed, battering a fist against the wall.

“No need to shout,” came a cold, cruel voice, far too close. As effective as a slap, his tone jerked her out of her tears. “My, my, Sarah. I thought you had forgotten.”

She didn’t turn to look at him. “I want to. Help me. Help me forget her!”

He was silent for a few moments, then said, “I can do that. But do you recall the term I laid down all those years ago?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

His gloved fingers appeared in her line of sight. “Then take my hand. Your every dream awaits you.”

Without another word, she reached for him.﻿


End file.
